Finding Family
by unimportance
Summary: They have always thought that Merlin only ever had his mother and a father he never knew. Now he has another family member, but how will they deal with supposed lack of trust?
1. Good Morning Camelot

**Hey everyone! I am Unimportance. I hope you'll enjoy this story, and I will always do the best I can in writing it. I don't plan on making this story too long, and this is my first try at a Merlin fic.** **All comments would be greatly appreciated, though preferably constructive criticism or anything positive.**

_**Summary:**_**They have always thought that Merlin only ever had his mother and a father he never knew. Now he has another family member, but how will they deal with supposed lack of trust?**

_**Disclaimer:**_**I do not own Merlin. Sad but true.**

It was a cool, quiet day in Camelot. People wandered about their morning business, huddled in their cloaks against the crisp breeze.

It was nearing fall and the farmers had been very busy bringing in the harvest, keeping enough in their villages to survive the winter and sending the rest to the grand palace to be placed in the stores.

There was always lots of hustle and bustle around this time of year. The majority of Camelot's people tired themselves with huge workloads, but none more so than a certain servant.

He was asleep at the moment, but he was late. Again. Outside the door of his small room, his mentor was shuffling about the chambers, preparing a small breakfast.

When the old man finished he climbed the steps to the messy room of his sleeping apprentice. Knocking, he barked, "Merlin, if you don't get up now you will miss Arthur's breakfast! You are already late!" Hearing a muffled groan and the rustle of a blanket, he turned away with a satisfied smile.

After a few moment of tired confusion Merlin struggled from his bed as fast as he could and hurriedly got dressed. Running down the steps, he gathered his morning meal and with a rushed goodbye was out the door and heading for the kitchens, leaving behind a chuckling court physician.

As the young warlock hurried through the corridors, he greeted the other servants and maids he passed. Many greeted him back or gave him a smile, to which he gave a bigger grin in return. This, unknowingly, put the others in a much brighter mood and gave them strength and patience with their masters and enabling them to come home in the evening with small smiles still plastered to their faces.

Reaching the kitchens, after several steep flights of well worn stairs and plenty of winding corridors, Jennalyne, the head cook's apprentice, handed him the prince's food and he was off again, leaving hurriedly to avoid confrontation on his eating habits.

Merlin then made his way to where the prat of a prince was still sleeping, having yet to be woken by his manservant. He had to climb several more flights of steps and walk through many more corridors to get to the royals quarters.

Holding the tray of assorted delicacies, Merlin stared at the door handle for a minute or so, contemplating how to open the door without setting the prince's food on the floor (a familiar engagement for him). Eventually he shifted the tray so it was balancing precariously on his arm. Then slowly he moved his free arm to open the door.

Once it was wide enough for him to be able to slip through with his master's breakfast, he walked over and placed it on the large oak desk in the centre of the room. Merlin knew by now that if he placed the meal on the desk in a certain way, then Arthur would have a harder time complaining about his servant's uselessness.

When he finished his task he walked over to the window and reached for the heavy velvet drapery to relieve them from their job of blocking out the morning light. As he pulled them open he heard Arthur groan from his place upon the plush bed.

"Morning, Arthur!" came Merlin's voice. The prince groaned again, rolled over, grabbed the nearest object to him (just a pillow today, sometimes Arthur would go as far as to grab a stray shoe off the floor) and threw it at the obnoxious servant who was still standing by the window with an annoying smirk on his face.

After getting up, still glaring at Merlin, Arthur walked over to the large desk to eat his breakfast. Only then did Merlin start his endless job of keeping the chambers clean. Picking up discarded clothes and assorted weapons he rambled on about everything and nothing, knowing Arthur wasn't listening anyway.

"There is a council meeting today, Merlin," Arthur remarked as if commenting on the weather, knowing full well that his lazy servant absolutely despised such meetings and revelled on seeing his face at the news.

As suspected, Merlin scrunched up his face in a small scowl while Arthur laughed. "I suppose you want me to come too, right?" he muttered and glared at the prince mockingly. The future king was full out howling with laughter now, but still managed to send Merlin a smug look. The warlock sighed as he picked out Arthur's clothes for the day.

Little did either of the two know, this council meeting was going to change their lives forever.

**I'm actually pretty proud of this first chapter. I thank my beta **_**Meruryan **_**and my extrea eyes **_**llLethell**_ **for helping me with this! I realise that Arthur would probably never laugh that hard, but I just think that he is always so intense and strict or intense and very lenient with Merlin in other stores so I thought I would try to lower his intensity a bit.** **Anyway, I would like to point out that I post **_**way**_** faster with reviews. I would love to know what you think! Until next time...!**


	2. The council

**Hey! Sorry for the wait! but here it is! The second chapter of my story! Sadly I do not own any of the characters or places in Merlin. What I do own are my ideas and writing style. I hope you enjoy!**

Arthur sat on his throne beside the king, bored out of his mind but forcing himself to pay attention and look interested. The council had been in session for about four and a half hours already. He and Merlin had been sharing exasperated looks for some time now, planning their hasty escape to freedom as soon as the meeting was adjourned.

Merlin had nearly fallen asleep several times and would have if it had not been for Gaius. He had spent the last few hours staring blankly out a window and sharing looks with Arthur, not really paying much attention to the things being discussed.

Farmers, peasants, and nobles alike would all come to hearings such as this one to express strong opinions and worries, share progress statuses of the kingdom's crops and resources, and generally to complain about something or other. Most of it was all repetitive.

To Merlin and Arthur, this was all really just a waste of time. Unless it involved some special event or a possible threat to Camelot, Arthur was not really required to do anything about it anyway. Merlin on the other hand had absolutely no use for the information. Not that they didn't care what was going on in Camelot. They did, but anything important was hardly ever discussed in these meetings.

The list of people they still had to see had almost reached its end when a young knight walked up to the king.

"Sire," he said bowing in front of Uther, "there is one last group of people who say they want to see you. My men and I found them in the woods during this morning's patrol, Sire. They are in rough shape, but they said they need to speak with you as soon as possible."

This caught the attention of the prince and the warlock. Their gazes drifted towards each other. The young prince smirked as if to say, "maybe this won't be a complete waste of time after all." Merlin just nodded slightly, more worried about these visitors than Arthur.

A trio was lead into the hall, and they did indeed look rather rugged. There were two girls and a boy, all about the same age as Merlin. They were pale, thin, and very tired looking, and their clothes seemed to be torn and singed. Luckily, under it all they didn't seem to be badly hurt. The girl in the middle was limping and leaning heavily on her comrades, but that seemed to be the extent of the injuries.

"What business do you have with the council of Camelot?" asked Uther.

"Well, Sire," replied the boy, his voice betraying his weariness, "our village was attacked by a large group of bandits just after the latest trading caravan had left. We tried to fight them off, but our house- our whole village for that matter, was burned down in the process. Many lives were lost, our parents and the healer included. We escaped and hid in the forest. We didn't know where else to go, so we decided to make our way here. The bandits are still out there and might attack other villages near our own."

The king looked at them with scrutinizing eyes as if searching for lies before replying: "You were wise to come here. Do you know where these bandits came from or where they headed to?"

"Of that we know nothing, Sire, but we think they might have followed trader Maddiline into the village from east."

As the girl in the middle spoke, a spark of memory ignited in Merlin's mind. He thought he remembered that soft voice from his childhood... But could it be? He took a closer look at the girl. With dark hair, blue eyes, a fairly tall and lanky build and a pale skin colour, her features were not unlike Merlin's own. If he looked closely he could just make out a small scar above the girl's eyebrow from when they had been but children. Yes, this was her. But how? How had she survived?

He mentally shook himself. Now was not the time to wonder about that. At that moment he didnt much care that the council was still in session, he had to be sure.

"E-Esrith? Is that you?"

**Hey everybody! I apologise for the long wait, but most of you know how busy life can get, and how easily one can find themselfs swept up in their everyday lives. I dont really have much exuse either. I had plenty of free time, I just didnt write any thing, and for that I appologise. I do hope to get another chapter or two up before summer as I will be gone on out of country adventures and other summer camp related stuff. This chapter is the third one I wrote and is much shorter than the other two but a whole lot better. I hope you enjoyed it! Please reveiw or PM me! Any input is GREATLY appritiated! **

**Keep in mind that the more feedback I get, the faster the next chapter will be writen. :)**


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